Comprehensive NaviMedix Survey Quantifies Impact of Using the Web for Health Plan/Provider Business Processes.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- NaviMedix Shows That the Web Improves Payer/Provider Relationships and Satisfaction with Health Plans; Multi-Payer Sites Drive More Web Transactions

NaviMedix, Inc. today announced the results of a comprehensive provider survey, which quantified the impact health plan Web sites have on provider/health plan communications and business processes. The survey showed that the use of the Company's Web-based NaviNet(SM) platform has significantly enhanced provider efficiency and productivity, particularly in regard to administrative transactions, paperwork and telephone activity with health plans.

The Company also measured the effect of the Web on payer/provider relationships. Results showed that use of the Web improves ease of interaction with health plans, and that providers' overall satisfaction with a health plan is driven in large part by this ease of interaction. The survey indicated that providers view a health plan's Web site as the actual health plan and that this pervasive online influence can affect the way providers feel about a health plan. The survey also showed that if providers are given the option to use a single Web site to conduct administrative transactions with multiple health plans, they would conduct more of those transactions via the Web.

"The results are important because they quantify how health plans can use the Web to increase the satisfaction level of their providers," said Tim Hargarten, president and CEO of NaviMedix. "In addition, they prove that by using real-time Web solutions to streamline communications and transactions, health plans can dramatically improve the efficiency levels of physician offices and hospitals and improve their relationships with their provider communities."

Survey: Use of Web Significantly Improves Provider Productivity and Efficiency

The NaviMedix survey focused on key criteria, including preferred Web sites for conducting administrative transactions, the impact NaviNet has on paperwork and telephone activity with health plans, and providers' overall satisfaction with NaviNet. Results showed that nearly 100 percent of providers improved efficiency levels with NaviNet, including dramatic reductions in paper processes and phone calls.

Survey results showed that:

--97 percent of respondents improved office efficiency through the use of NaviNet. Furthermore, 86 percent of providers used NaviNet to reduce outbound calls to health plans. Of those 86 percent, 43 percent reported that NaviNet has enabled them to cut their number of outbound calls to health plans by at least half.

--Nearly 70 percent of respondents indicated that NaviNet reduced the amount of paperwork in their offices. Of those respondents, nearly a quarter used NaviNet to cut their paperwork by 51-100 percent. More than a third of those respondents cut paperwork by 25-50 percent with NaviNet.

--96 percent of providers said that NaviNet makes it easier for them to do their work, and almost 90 percent of providers said that it would be difficult to get through their day without NaviNet. 82 percent of providers ranked NaviNet as their favorite site for conducting administrative transactions with health plans. NaviNet was ranked number one across all states in which it is deployed.

The survey was offered via the Web to all physician offices and hospitals using NaviNet, across all states in which NaviNet is currently deployed, including New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Ohio, Delaware, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Vermont. The survey was conducted over a four-day period, gathering data from a total of 3,824 individual providers.

Effect of the Web on Payer/Provider Relationships and Transaction Volume

In a separate survey, NaviMedix surveyed providers about the ease of doing business with health plans and communicating with multiple payers online via a single source versus multiple sources. Findings showed that ease of interaction is a major factor in providers' overall satisfaction with health plans, that NaviNet-enabled health plans were four times as easy to do business with than all other health plans combined, and that NaviNet improves providers' perceptions of health plans. The survey also showed a strong preference for using a unified interface to interact with multiple health plans. In fact, providers said that if they were given the opportunity to use a multi-payer site, they would perform more administrative transactions via the Web.

Significant findings included:

--90 percent of providers felt that the ease with which they interact with a health plan impacts their overall satisfaction with that health plan, and 75 percent of providers confirmed that ease of interaction impacts which health plans they recommend to patients.

--Nearly 80 percent of providers surveyed rated NaviNet-enabled health plans as the easiest organizations with which to do business. Furthermore, respondents ranked NaviNet-enabled plans four times as easy to do business with than all other health plans combined.

--Between 78 and 90 percent of providers reported that using NaviNet has improved their perception of NaviNet-enabled plans.

--95 percent of respondents indicated that they prefer using one Web site to conduct administrative transactions with multiple health plans. 92 percent of those respondents would like that one site to be NaviNet.

--75 percent of respondents said that if the same electronic transactions available on other sites were available on NaviNet, they would perform those transactions more often.

A white paper detailing survey results can be found online at: http://www.navimedix.com/surveywhitepaper.

NaviNet is sponsored by many of the country's largest health plans, including Aetna, Independence Blue Cross, Health Net, Highmark Inc., Blue Cross of Northeastern Pennsylvania, SummaCare Health Plan and others, and provided at no cost to their affiliated physician offices and hospitals. NaviNet automates manual, time-consuming transactions--ranging from eligibility and benefits verification, referral processing and claim status inquiry to more robust processes such as credentialing, claim investigation and correction and medical management capabilities.

About NaviMedix

More than 85,000 physician and 500 hospital subscribers utilize the NaviNet online platform to automate more than 50 labor-intensive, paper- and phone-laden administrative processes. NaviMedix is improving healthcare communications between health plans, physicians and hospitals. Leveraging NaviMedix's NaviNet platform, these healthcare participants are realizing reduced administrative costs and enhanced relationships with each other. For more information, please visit www.navimedix.com or call the Company's headquarters at 617-715-6000.